May 2009 Archives

Rep. Linda Sanchez has released photos of their son, Joaquin Sánchez Sullivan. The healthy baby boy was born at 9:13a.m., Wednesday, May 13, weighing 7 pounds, 14.6 ounces and was 20.6 inches long. Here are the pictures. First up is the baby as taken on Monday.

Here is Sanchez and her husband, Jim Sullivan, holding their baby, also taken Monday.

And here are Sullivan's sons, from left, Brendan, age 11, Jack, age 10, and Seamus (front), age 6, visiting their new baby brother in the hospital on May 14.

Greg Nordbak, Joe Vinatieri and Cathy Warner have a new ally in their fight to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. It's long-time gadfly Joe Marsico.
During Monday's public hearing on the ordinance to ban such businesses, Marsico told the commission it should approve the ordinance. "This medical marijuana is pathetic," he said.

Asked on Tuesday about what it's like to agree with three council members, he laughed loudly. "I don't know what to say," he said. "They're accidentally right."

During his speech Monday, Marsico drew in comparisons to Communist China and multi-million dollar corporations. He asserted that Mao Zedong got rid of all of the opium shops and dealers. "He put them on a ship and then sank the ship," Marsico said. "That's how the Chinese people got the message that (drugs) were no good."

Marsico also alleged that large companies were behind the movement for medical marijuana dispensaries. "Why can't people, who need it, get it on their own?" he asked. "If this was a free country, then you should bed able to make your own whiskey and beer and drink it. And you should be able to plant marijuana) and use it.

The old saying is that whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting. Well here in Whittier, they're both for drinking and we fight over trees. And at the 6:30 p.m. Whittier City Council meeting look for another fight.

A resident at 15228 Youngwood Drive doesn't want the city remove a white birch tree he had planted in the parkway area without permission. He appealed to the Parks and Recreation Commission but was turned down because birch is not an approved tree for the area.
Councilman Greg Nordbak asked for the appeal.

You've all seen the story where the car tries to cross the railroad tracks before the train hits. That's a pretty good analogy for what's going to happen in terms of medical marijuana dispensaries in Whittier.

Here's the basic scenario. The City Council voted 3-2 this week to direct staff to prepare an ordinance to prepare such businesses. But meanwhile, a Pico Rivera-based nonprofit group wants to open one and is revising its application. Since there's no ban, city staff is continuing to help the group. So if the ban becomes effective before the group gets its city approval, the medical marijuana dispensary goes into existence. But if the ban gets done first, the group is out of luck.

Right now, it looks like a train wreck could be on its way -- using the same analogy -- because Jeff Collier, director of community development, said both could go to the Planning Commission in June for hearings. Wouldn't it be interesting if the ban and the conditional use permit request were on the same agendas. Won't that be interesting?